The CHORDMACHINE
Starting the year with an oddity. I’m taking a look at (and a listen to) the CHORDMACHINE from Sony - a strange hybrid device that defies conventional categorisation. Unless that category is ‘What the heck were they thinking?’
In a recent update I mentioned how I’d avoided featuring boombox/synth combo units due to being unable to play keyboards. There’s no such concern here as I doubt Jean-Michel Jarre could wring a tune out of this one.
While I’m here - I’ll wish everyone all the best for what remains of 2022.
UPDATE
Re-edited and re-uploaded to aid clarity.
Comments (75)
Small tip: when resoldering broken solder joints like on that speaker jack, always add a little bit of either fresh flux core solder, or flux on its own. The pin and / or the old solder will have become somewhat dirty and oxidized, so the new connection might not be too great / strong without some flux to clean it all up.
It's interesting to note - a larger number of these can now be found on eBay for hideous prices.
I’m pretty sure anyone who buys one will be sorely disappointed. I can see people thinking there’s loads of unseen and untapped potential. There’s going to be a few ‘oh, turns out it doesn’t do much, just like he said’.
That's so cool 😎
This video just hit my dopamine center in the perfect way! I collect wacky retro tech and was really surprised I'd never heard of this one. (And this is coming from a guy who owns a Mail Call.) Anyway, much appreciated, I found a Chordmachine for not a horrible price on ebay and promptly bought it.
I hope it brings you some joy.
I was I the only one using the Japanese to English translate on the buttons 🤣
It would be interesting what music 8bit-keys could make on it. I liked watching the linked video.
I think the most important chip is under that ribbon cable. The TMS1025 looks important but turns out that's just an "input output expander". I expect that the chip under the ribbon cable is some sort of Texas Instruments or Yamaha synthesizer chip and they went to Sony and said "Hey how about making a boom box with a synthesizer, using this awesome new synthesizer chip?" and Sony said "there's already plenty of boomboxes with keyboards, don't you watch Techmoan?" (that's a joke) and TI or Yamaha said "but what if you would like to make music and don't know how to use a piano keyboard, and don't want to learn either? Just rename all the 12 tones in an octave "1" to "12" and add some controls to do funny things and a mic to do Karaoke?" and Sony said "ooohhhkaaay"....
Yes I wish I’d spotted that chip while I had it open. I often see things in editing that my eyes don’t spot at the time.
Those ridges on the front do look like cord trousers. The wrong sort of chord.
HNY! Very odd product all round - thanks for sharing it!
Mat, this is the best. A highlight for me was when you mentioned it getting interference from your WiFi and had to put “This is a joke” on the screen because people on YouTube will comment on it. Please let me know if they comment anyway even though you’ve clearly walked them straight to the obvious sarcasm and held their hand? If one person comments “This product is from 82! How could they know about WiFi?!“ please let me know so I can make plans to help me ensure 2022 just a bit more. Wow! What a great Sony product. I would’ve wanted that when I was six, played with it for ten minutes and that’s why sometimes I remember: parents do occasionally know better!
I’ll be sure to keep my eye on the comments, but there’s always the ‘oh, I was just joking’ defence, whenever someone gets caught out behaving in a dense manner in a public area. Although I think we can all spot someone caught in a lie…whether they are incapable of sweating or wearing a single black leather glove.
That infamous router strikes again. That ringing sound though the circuits was kinda awesome. Use it like a theremin and play some wacky stuff. That unit is super visually appealing, not sure if it's the briefcase aspect, the colours, the neato controls on the chord unit. Maybe the thing is to make home jams on cassette by adding in "synth" ?
Mat you are way more musical than me!
If that’s true - it sounds like you have a good chance of having a hit record nowadays.
Seems pretty reasonable in the context of Japan and their love for karaoke. I think the chord machine part is intended to be a "paint by numbers" sort of thing for those without actual piano/keyboard skills. Wish we could see that song book!
Loved the intro and a fascinating product, exactly what I want from a Techmoan video. Happy New Year!
Lovely intro! It's just a shame that we didn't get to see the part where you reached the town center, set the Chord Machine down somewhere with lots of tourist traffic, and started poppin' and lockin' for tips.
The police took that footage as evidence.
THAT. IS. BEAUTIFUL. ❤️❤️❤️ Please do 5 more videos on this or something like.
Oh man I would have loved this 10 years ago. The closet analog I can think of would be the Omnichrord (great example is Bowie covering the Simon and Garfunkel song ‘America’ (not to be confused with America, Fuck Yeah!”) at the post 9/11 MSG benefit
All well and good, but where's the rest of the angst ridden indie film that starts the video?
There was one video effect I wanted to do with that section, but I didn’t have the ability. It would have looked even more like an indie film if I’d managed it. FIN.
The opening was great. Don't kid yourself, Mat, you are talented and creative (no sarcasm font, either) in addition to being a great presenter. And then there is 17:08 ... Brilliant.
That cursed item needs to be shipped to Austria so AudioPilz can have a go.
The opening was like watching Subway on vhs and I dig it
Happy Birthday Mat ( I think I'm a little early, but I know you're around the same time as me ) Hopefully better than last year
A couple or so weeks to go - but I can’t imagine it being worse than last year…although there seems to be every chance it’ll be pretty much the same. Never mind, I hope you enjoy yours.
I am sure this device comes from a parallel world, and it shouldn't exist in our life form. But the thing that impressed me the most was that you had the matching belt in your set! What a great intro; thanks for sharing!
Nice video on an interesting device. I can offer that it could be quite useful for someone learning an instrument or improving voicework by laying down a certain chord progression and beat, and then playing along with it -- basically for solo/improvisation practice. There are some apps and devices that have been used in the same way over the years.
Happy New Year, Mat - really looking forward to another year of your excellent videos and chat. The device does tick a lot of boxes for me; switches, buttons, turny knobs, a radio, a cassette recorder and it makes weird noises too. Just a shame it doesn't have any function I could make use of being as I am even less musical than you are. But I enjoyed watching your video - especially as you managed to successfully repair it.
I’m glad it worked out too. My aim going into this was to make a decent video about something odd and I think I achieved that. I’m also glad that I don’t have a warehouse full of these I have to shift - even with the added antique appeal it’d be a tough sell.
This is the precise weird niche gadget type video I subscribe for!
It looks like some of the buttons change the chord from major to minor (H1/H2/ big "Shift" button?). It's similar to the Casio PT20's chord section, which of course could also use rhythms. It seems it was Sony's attempt at taking on Casio in that market. https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=mnK4fGC%2f&id=404D9550738478D149EC7A67F6479DF6C304EC46&thid=OIP.mnK4fGC_32aZIgThY6hIIQHaFj&mediaurl=https%3a%2f%2fassets.catawiki.nl%2fassets%2f2018%2f1%2f30%2f6%2f7%2fd%2f67dff896-2bc7-4c68-b578-e089d209f57c.jpg&cdnurl=https%3a%2f%2fth.bing.com%2fth%2fid%2fR.9a72b87c60bfdf66992204e163a84821%3frik%3dRuwEw%252fadR%252fZneg%26pid%3dImgRaw%26r%3d0&exph=525&expw=700&q=casio+pt20&simid=608001312993272553&FORM=IRPRST&ck=97DF248CA944DAF869DDE2D3D1E4706E&selectedIndex=2&ajaxhist=0&ajaxserp=0
I remember quite a lot of synth keyboards had the smaller mini keyboard section on the left. I’d imagine these were probably one of the lesser used features for most people, so it does seem odd to base a product around this.
After watching it a second time, I started experiencing 'commenter paranoia' and I am wondering if you will get people asking if you tried to plug proper speakers into it (I know those aren't RCA outputs) or used the headphone jack to output to a more robust synthesizer, etc. This commenter paranoia is worrisome 😵💫.
Think of the most bizarre and irrelevant thing someone with a severe head trauma might ask about something they weren't interested in and haven't been paying attention to... and you'll probably still only be a tenth of the way there.
"Hey, why don't you come over? I got something really cool to show you." "It isn't another personal karaoke machine, is it?" "No." "Because the last time you were this excited, it was a personal karaoke machine and we know how that turned out." "No. I _swear_ that I'm not trying to get all of my friends to come over and make them listen to me perform again. With a personal karaoke machine."
I bet Sam from Look Mum No Computer could modify this to make it useful (probably by adding a way to remotely control the chord buttons), however it would still only be a novelty. An interesting look at Sony's history all the same.
For me as an amateur musician: this thing also does not make any sense to me... Neither do the numbers and chords it generates. More like a kid's toy. But that doesn't fit with the advertisement, that shows an (at least from the looks) decent guitar... But as usual: just extremely cool to see something like that, the more unusual and pointless, the more interesting is a video about it
I’ll collect just about anything, but I’d give a hard pass on this one.
I saw the title and was expecting a Suzuki Omnichord, which I think the Sony is trying unsuccessfully to compete with. Of course the novelty of just having any kind of electronic synthesis was a selling point back then. Before the 1980s the type keyboards professional musicians used cost as much as a car, while the sort of thing kids got were Bomtempi reed organs which made only one sound and didn't have rhythms. You could play a tune on them though. 10:00 Surprising to see a Texas Instruments TMS1000 Mask programmed Microprocessor in there. That was the first Microprocessor we had in our house. "Now you can have a Microprocessor in your house !" the advert exclaimed. So exciting that my Mother paid for one .The product it was used in was a Chromachime 24 tune doorbell which I built from a kit back in 1978, Definitely in the category of "Exciting New Products that you have never seen (or heard) before". With even products in Poundland incorporating Microprocessor I think we have all got a bit jaded by them
The reason why you don't seem to be getting anything "decent" out of the synth part, even from professional musicians on YouTube, is because this isn't really meant for that. There's a reason the advertising kept pushing you toward guitars and voice: you were meant to play along to this, with your guitar or voice providing the actual melody part and this device doing the accompaniment — the actual chords or harmony and the drums. Many MIDI keyboards from the 90s on provide similar functionality, but they included the part that you could use to play over it =P But you won't actually be writing complete songs entirely using the synths here. The closest thing that I can think of to something similar to this used in actual professional capacity was Timmy Thomas's first album and big hit Why Can't We Live Together, which used one of this devices's forebears — a fixed-rhythm drum machine originally meant for musicians-for-hire playing in lounges. (He still played a full organ on those recordings, though.) Hopefully that helps clear things up, maybe???
The name CHORDMACHINE I feel does explain its intended purpose quite well - and I hope I covered this sufficiently in the video…but as to how many people actually needed a chord machine…well since this is the only one, I suspect the answer lies somewhere between none and not enough.
I think one reason they did not add a proper keyboard (however minimal) might be because of that "pitch" control. There is no accuracy when selecting what note plays when any particular key is pressed; that would drive any musician nuts - hit a C and get "F-and-a-bit"! Fascinating find though, Mat. It's weird and wonderful in true Techmoan tradition. :)
That's no reason, most professional synths (than I mean synthesisers, like the analog ones from Moog, ARP, etc., not modern-day digital keyboards) have that too: there the keyboard is just one way to modify the pitch.
Thanks for the warning at the start of the video, but I have never found your voice to be an annoying shrill sound! 😂
I notice that in the usual Sony tradition, the device carries the label of FM/AM STEREO CASSETTE-CORDER. I imagine it could have been called a "Chord-Corder" if it actually had the ability to record from the synthesizer section.
It can record from the synth. I'll re-edit the video as I didn't mention this.
"this was a joke" made me laugh!
What's not a joke is all the idiots who will still leave comments like "802.11 G wasn't released yet when this was produced!"
For me- it keeps coming down to the fact that the "two sides" are completely unable to work together. This may be the most pointless device you've ever highlighted. It's such a mystery as to WHY they would produce this- it's actually a bit irritating... amusingly.
First of all, Happy New Year! Are you able to record the “synthesizer” with the cassette player? I thought that the drum patterns and sound where pretty cool, but the synth was bollocks. Great intro btw!
You can record anything it does, but whether you’d want to…
I live in Japan and I just saw one of these in person at a strange high-end boutique shop. It was also sold, just on display until the person picked it up. I had no idea what it was until I saw this video! Thanks!
At first I thought the tones this thing produced were dreadful but once you had the arpeggio setting on; it actually sounded quite pleasant! Like an 8bit RPG village theme.
When Matt was getting interference from his router it was producing the type of sounds "Circuit Benders" dream of achieving.
A friend used to work for Sony, and had access to the company shop. Among all the nice toys you’d often find a pile of some devices being sold off for pennies that just weren’t a good idea. I think this one came from that pile!
I am always amzed how much odd stuff is out there and it's more amazing that you find these oddities. On the chips from Texas Instruments I can spot a datecode 8231. Seems to be from late summer 1982.
The machine came out in October 1982.
Dang, you turn on the radio and it insults you. 😕 That cinematic intro was very nice; there's no other people around, either, made it eerie. Am I mistaken or did the camera move in that last intro clip? I enjoyed this one - I was curious about this machine, but it's much less sophisticated than it looks. Sony, what were you thinking?
The intro was a simple idea that turned out to be anything but to shoot due to leaving a vital part of the tripod in the house.
Another great video! Maybe another trip to see Sam is in order?
If the intro scenes are from Your home town, You do have some interesting surroundings. I'd love to go there !
It’s a place not too far away - of course I picked out the more interesting backdrops, it’s not all like that, most of it looks much the same as everywhere else.
Happy New Year Mat and being a singer and musician i for the life of me could not see a useful use for that
So you've got no need for a 'Chord Bloke'? Flippin eck, I thought this would finally be my ticket into showbiz.
Ah, a product from back in the day when manufacturers took chances. There are still product failures today but the sheer volume of different electronic devices from 40 years ago is staggering. Fascinating video.
If The Shaggs had lasted until the '80s and gone into synth pop, this would've been the instrument for them. (BTW HNY Mat!)
Happy New Year Mat and did you compose the tune at the start 🎶
Well I pressed a button or two, yes.
Happy New year. This contraption is clearly a case of VERY: "Only in Japan" every time we go there things like this pops up in Akihabara.... and other places...it's very odd, but fully normal over there. :)
Happy New year to you and your family.